Napster and Limewire were better for music discovery than Spotify ever will be.
By @inesyy · Nostalgia
Spending 3 hours downloading a corrupted file that was mislabeled as a hit song built character. Spotify just serves you the same 40 songs in a dozen different 'mood' playlists.
The full story
I see all these posts about Spotify Wrapped and it just reminds me of how sterile music has become. The whole thrill of the hunt is gone. You used to have to work for it. You'd get a tip from a friend about a band, spend your entire evening on a dial-up connection watching the download bar inch across the screen for a single song, and half the time it would be a completely different song or just a virus that wrecked the family computer. But that was the beauty of it. You cherished the songs you successfully downloaded. You'd make a mix CD and every single track had a story. Now, you have infinite access to everything, instantly. And because of that, nothing feels special. The algorithm just pushes you toward what's already popular, it doesn't reward digging. There's no sense of community or trading secrets. It was a digital treasure hunt, now it's just a sterile, all-you-can-eat buffet with no flavor.
How people voted
- Valid Take — 24% (21 votes)
- I’m Torn — 52% (46 votes)
- Bad Take — 25% (22 votes)
Readers say “I’m Torn” (52%) — 89 votes and 5 comments so far.
What people are saying
@benee — Ah yes, the good old days of giving the family computer an STD to get one song.
@masonkinda — Did you try using anything other than the Spotify top 50 playlists?
@welpokay — lmao
@sortakinda — soft.
@coleyy — If it's not on a CD or the radio it's not real music.
Keep reading
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- Kids today will never know the stress of burning a perfect CD.